Setting Up Folder Names Before the Winter Shooting Season
Part three on folder structures and naming: how to prepare your hierarchy and file names in these autumn weeks, before holiday work and year-end deliveries start to pile up.
Priya Raman · · 5 minutes to read
Why autumn is the right time to fix your structure
Mid autumn tends to be the quiet stretch between the summer shoots and the rush of year-end deliveries. Cameras are back on the shelf, drives are full of last season's material, and nobody is yet racing a deadline. That gap is the cheapest moment you will get all year to change how files are named and where they live.
Waiting until December is how teams end up inventing folder names at eleven at night, one editor at a time, each slightly different. By then a convention feels like a burden. Right now it feels like housekeeping, and housekeeping is something a team can agree on in a single afternoon.
I teach this module as part of the curriculum, and the pattern is consistent: structures introduced before a busy period survive it, while those introduced during one are abandoned within a week. Treat the coming months as a deadline you set yourself.
Start from what the team already does
Before drawing a new hierarchy, look at the folders you actually have. Open two or three recent project drives and write down the top-level folders in each. You will usually find a rough pattern already in use: raw footage, audio, graphics, exports. A good structure formalises that habit instead of replacing it.
Ask each person where they would look for a client's final export from last spring. Different answers tell you which parts of the current system are unclear. Those are the places a new convention must be firmest.
Keep the top level short. Five to seven folders that every project shares is easier to remember than a long list that tries to cover every case. Anything unusual belongs deeper down, inside a project, where only the people working on it need to see it.
- Sample two or three recent project drives
- Note the top-level folders each one uses
- Ask three people where a past export lives
A worked example you can adapt
Here is a pattern that suits a small production team. Each project gets one root folder named with the client, the project and the year, for example Client_ProjectName_2026. Inside sit numbered folders so they always sort in the same order: 01_Footage, 02_Audio, 03_Graphics, 04_Project_Files, 05_Exports, 06_Documents.
Under 01_Footage, add one folder per shoot day, starting with the date in year-month-day order. This keeps days in sequence without any extra effort, and it means a missing day is obvious at a glance. Within each day, separate cameras so card offloads never mix.
The numbers matter more than they seem. Without them, software sorts folders alphabetically and Exports ends up above Footage, which confuses anyone who opens the drive for the first time. Adapt the names to your own work, but keep the numbered order.
- Root: Client_ProjectName_2026
- 01_Footage with one folder per shoot day
- 05_Exports for finals and approved review copies
Naming files so they sort and explain themselves
A file name should tell a stranger what the file is without opening it. A workable order is project code, date, description, then version, joined with underscores and no spaces. Spaces and special characters cause trouble when files move between systems or are shared with outside collaborators.
Put the date in year-month-day order so a list sorts chronologically. Keep descriptions short and plain: interview_wide, not final_wide_FIXED_new. Words like final and new age badly, because the next change makes them untrue.
Agree the convention in writing on a single page and put it in the project template. A rule that lives only in someone's head disappears when that person goes on leave, and the coming months always include some leave.
- Order: code, date, description, version
- Use underscores, avoid spaces and symbols
- Avoid words such as final or new
Common slips to watch for in the next few weeks
The most frequent problem is drift: a good structure in week one, three variations by week six. People rename a folder to suit a rush job and never rename it back. A short monthly check, ten minutes looking at the top level of active drives, catches this early.
Another slip is storing exports beside source files. When finals sit in the footage folder, nobody can tell which are deliverables and which are rough passes. Keep outputs in their own folder from the first day.
Finally, resist the urge to restructure old archives all at once. Apply the new convention to projects starting now and leave completed work alone until there is a reason to open it. Mixing the two efforts is how a tidy-up turns into a month of lost files.
- Check active drives briefly each month
- Keep exports out of the footage folder
- Apply new rules to new projects first
Putting it in place before the year ends
A realistic plan for these weeks is small. Hold one short meeting, settle the top-level folders and the naming order, and build an empty project template that already contains them. Every new project then starts from the template instead of from memory.
Name one person who answers questions about the convention, so exceptions get decided once instead of argued over repeatedly. Review the page after the first two projects and adjust whatever proved awkward.
None of this needs special software. A shared drive, a text document and a template folder are enough, and they cost far less than the hours lost searching for a clip in the middle of a deadline.
A folder structure and a naming rule are small decisions that pay back every time someone opens a drive. Use these autumn weeks to agree them, build a template and apply it to the next project that starts. By the time the year-end rush arrives, your team will be finding files instead of hunting for them, and the habit will already be in place.
Send us a message
- Call us
- (505) 214-0873
- By email
- [email protected]